


Interview with the Frat Boy

by the_corinthian



Category: Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Arson, Drunk!Louis, Fraternities & Sororities, General douchebaggery, Heavy Drinking, Multi, No Homo, Sexual Harassment, Yes homo, fire in general, pretentious hipster types, several different and uniquely poor kinds of childcare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_corinthian/pseuds/the_corinthian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Lestat told me pledge week had been banned for them because they broke so many laws. So all that was left was the initiation ceremony for me to become a member. In retrospect, I don’t think my initiation ceremony was exactly standard or approved of by the other members of the frat. All Lestat and I did was take body shots off one another and sleep in the same bed.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> A retelling of Interview with the Vampire in which all of the characters are asshole frat boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic could not have been published without the oversight of burnadette_dpdl and cloudsinvenice who gave me great advice on making this publishable caught so many embarrassing errors that would've made me look like a dumbass.
> 
> The underage in the tags is in reference to the fact that Armand exists and is of... indeterminate age. But there's also a minor character Armand is with who is definitely underage.

Louis was waiting. There was no one in the house right now. It was blissfully quiet. This was the calm before the storm. Any second now Lestat would finish class, Lestat would find the article, Lestat would burst in and-

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” There it is. Lestat enters the room in a burst of AXE body spray and drama. He’s clutching a copy of the student newspaper tight in his fist. He’s even angrier than Louis expected.

Louis weighs his options and decides he’ll explain later, when Lestat is looking less like he experimented with bath salts.

Unfortunately, Lestat is freakishly fast and before Louis can stand up to make his escape, Lestat has pushed him back down and straddles his lap.

“Is this really necessary?” Louis asks, gesturing at their current position.

“Yes. You have some explaining to do. What is this?” Lestat brandishes the newspaper in Louis’ face.

“I gave an interview to a journalism student about my life as a frat boy,” Louis says, innocently.

“Yes you did. And it is filled with lies and slander!” Lestat’s voice rises to a roar. “For one thing, my hair is not flaxen, it is GOLDEN!”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “That’s what you’re mad about?”

“I stopped reading after that point. I was too angry to continue with this story of lies,” Lestat spits. “But let us read it now shall we?”

This isn’t good. Louis tries to get up but the weight of Lestat pins him in place as Lestat opens the newspaper to the correct page. Louis closes his eyes as Lestat starts to read, memories of the day he gave the interview and of the events that lead him to give it washing over him, unbidden.

  
~~~~

_I started College in my 23rd year. My brother had left to become a priest months before and for the first time in my life I was free from his weird, religious scrutiny. Living under his roof had made me never drink, or do drugs or many other things that I did in my first year that he couldn’t even conceive of in his most hellfire related sermons. Very soon after I came to this school, I began to drink. Not soon after that, I became a member of a fraternity._

To be specific, Louis started drinking on his third day of orientation week. Someone handed him a shot of something that tasted like nail polish remover and then another, and then another. That was Louis’ first time being drunk.

It was by no means his last. Undeterred by the awful experience of a first hangover, Louis continued to drink. And with drinking came parties which is how Louis found himself at some shitty first year party held on a fucking Thursday of all things during the first week of classes. A stranger with flaxen hair descends down upon him, holding a beer bong and instructing Louis to drain it dry. Louis does and slumps against the blond man who is now holding him steady. Flaxen Hair grins down at him.

“I feel like I have more beer in my system than blood,” Louis slurs.

The man smiles at him and Louis grins lazily back before lying down on the couch.

“I think if my brother could see me now he would die,” murmurs Louis. “He’s such an asshole.”

The blond man nods in understanding. “You think that’s bad? I have six brothers, and they’re all assholes.”

Louis puts a finger to the man’s lips. “Shhhhhh. It’s my turn to speak.”

Flaxen Hair rolls his eyes but the amount of alcohol coursing through Louis’ system renders him unable to pick up the gesture.

“He’s just such an asshole. You know?” says Louis, gesturing at his companion in the hope of solidarity.

The blond man rolls his eyes again. “I believe you might have mentioned something about it.”

“I mean,” says Louis, smacking a hand against his forehead. “He ran off to be a priest. _A priest._ Who does that?”

The blond man shrugs. “Priests, I guess. Weirder things have happened. I killed six wolves one time.”

“You,” he slurs, pointing at the blond man. “Are a fucking liar and should kindly now leave me alone to sleep.” Louis has no such luck. The stranger hauls him to his feet and out of the party into the chilled autumn air.

“I think perhaps it would be better if you passed out at home,” the man says, laughing at Louis’s attempts to walk straight.

“Fuck you,” says Louis, narrowly missing the wall of the cafeteria.

_That night I was, for lack of a better word, attacked. The blond man had walked me back to my shitty single dorm (though I still do not know how he knew which room was mine) and opened the door. But before I could stumble across the threshold, he grabbed me and pinned me against the wall. In my drunken state, I was sure he was a vampire, what with the way his mouth was suddenly latched onto my neck, using far more teeth than lips to mark my skin._


	2. Chapter 2

Louis wakes up the next morning on the floor just inside his dorm room. He has a large hickey, a larger hangover and a larger still sense of self-loathing. Eventually, he manages to crawl the half-foot to his bed and collapse on it, swallowing a wave of nausea caused by this small amount of movement.

He misses class that day, sleeping off his hangover. He barely leaves his bed except to use the bathroom and grab a half-eaten bag of potato chips that act as his dinner.

The sun is just starting to go down when the door opens. It’s the blond man from last night. The man just stands in the doorway and stares in at Louis’ room for a long moment, the light from the hallway making his blond hair look almost haloed. Louis groans and puts his hand up over his face to shield it from the light. He hears the door close.

Louis removes his hand from his eyes, expecting to see his room empty and the man gone. But instead, he’s now kneeling next to Louis' bed. “Leave me alone to die,” Louis groans and rolls away to face the wall.

The stranger just chuckles and immediately launches into a series of stories about various drunken adventures and misadventures he had gotten himself into. Louis, wishing the stranger would just go away, tries to tune him out and go back to sleep.

After some minutes of one-sided conversation, the blond man begins to talk to Louis instead of just at him. Louis tunes in just in time to hear the stranger’s french accented voice say “you’ll come won’t you?”

Louis rolls over to face him. “Come where?”

A look of pure exasperation crosses the stranger’s handsome features. “To be initiated dumbass. I’m in a frat. You are looking at a member of the prestigious brotherhood of Alpha Alpha Alpha.”

If Louis was less hungover he probably would have laughed out loud. “Your frat’s name is Alpha Alpha Alpha?”

Flaxen Hair frowns at him. “Yes. Problem?”

Louis is too hungover to deal with any of this right now. He wants the man out of his room and he wants to go back to sleep so he takes the path of least resistance. “No,” he mutters. "None."

The stranger smiles at him, blue eyes lighting up. “Good. In that case, you will come on Saturday and become part of the brotherhood!”

The smell of sharpie hits Louis’ nose as the man uncaps one and writes something on Louis’ hand.

Finally, the man turns to leave. “I’ll see you then,” the stranger says, winking as he exits the room.

Louis falls back asleep.

~~~~

_I can only assume his interest in me and his desire to initiate me into the brotherhood was due to the fact that he wanted my car, which he’d left his name and number written on the windshield of with lipstick._

Louis spends the next morning cleaning a garish shade of pink lipstick off his windshield. He can’t help but wonder why the blond man, whose name turned out Lestat, had a tube of lipstick with him and whether or not Lestat is actually some female character in a terrible 90’s movie.

“Honestly,” Louis mutters, scrubbing at the calligraphied signature that Lestat had lipsticked onto his windshield. “Who does this?” Still scrubbing away at his windshield, Louis notices the sharpie still present on his hand. He hadn’t thought about Lestat’s invitation or actually looked to see where or when the frat party was. Apparently it was tonight.

All day long Louis goes back and forth on if he is actually going to the Alpha Alpha Alpha house and let Lestat initiate him. On the one hand, free booze and better accommodations than the shitty first year dorms. On the other hand, some creepy blond douchebag. It takes him so long to decide to go that by the time he arrives at the Alpha Alpha Alpha frat house, the party is already in full swing and most people are already completely hammered. Lestat locks onto him almost the instant he enters the house, placing a hand around his waist and a shot of rum in his hand.

Without being asked, Lestat gives Louis some half-assed tour of the frat house, introducing a few people whose names Louis doesn’t remember and pushing various drinks into Louis’ hand which he downs, gratefully. It’s easier to deal with Lestat with alcohol coursing through his system.

After about a half hour and several shots, Lestat turns to him. “Are you ready to be part of the brotherhood?”

Louis shrugs, looking around the room to find more booze. “Sure.”

“Good.” Lestat drags Louis away from a keg that’s being tapped by a kid who doesn’t even look old enough to drive, let alone be drinking at a frat party and over to a quieter room where a member of a different fraternity sits nursing a beer.

“Watch,” whispers Lestat and offers the man a half-empty bottle of rum.

Louis watches Lestat tip the bottle into the man’s mouth, making him take drink after drink of the hard alcohol.

The frat boy coughs violently as Lestat takes the bottle away and reaches desperately for a glass of water nearby which he knocks back just as quick as he had the rum. When he’s done, he collapses on the floor, eyes closed.

Lestat kneels next to the man and grabs him under one arm. He gestures to Louis. “Help me with him.”

Together, they half carry, half drag the man out of the frat house and across campus to where the man’s girlfriend apparently lives.

“Do you know where everyone on campus lives?” asks Louis.

“Only the pretty ones,” Lestat assures, his eyes twinkling.

They dump the drunk man his girlfriend's doorstep. Louis turns to leave when Lestat grabs his hand. “Wait,” he says, and pulls out a tube of lipstick. Lestat applies it to his own lips and kneels down to leave lipstick marks on the passed out man’s neck and collar. Louis notices that it’s a different shade than the one Lestat had written on his car with. A drunken thought passes through his head of how much makeup Lestat owns but he decides it’s not a question he wants to pursue.

Lestat stands up again, most of the lipstick gone from his face and now on the man’s neck. “Ok. We can go now.”

~~~~

Lestat has an arm around Louis’ neck so tight it almost felt like a headlock. Louis’ head is spinning as they walk back to the party. “That,” says Louis, indignantly. “Was a really douchey thing to do. I know his girlfriend. She’s in my chem 1 class.”

Lestat stops and turns to look at Louis. “Oh no, cherie,” he says, grinning widely. “What would be douchey is if I took his wallet… Oh wait!” Lestat pulls a wallet out of his pocket and holds it up for Louis to see. “I did that too!” He laughs and slings his arm back around Louis’ neck.

Louis tries to shrug him off but over balances and almost falls over. “Take me home,” Louis mutters. “I’m done for the night. Take me home.”

Lestat’s grip around his neck gets tighter and he keeps walking. “I thought you wanted this. I thought you wanted to be part of the brotherhood.”

“Brotherhood,” Louis repeats. “Brother. Fuck, my brother’s such an asshole.”

Lestat’s sigh is muffled by the music pounding from the walls of Alpha Alpha Alpha.

~~~~

_Lestat told me pledge week had been banned for them because they broke so many school rules and a couple of laws. So all that was left was the initiation ceremony for me to become a member. In retrospect, I don’t think my initiation ceremony was exactly standard or approved of by the other members of the frat. All Lestat and I did was take body shots off one another and sleep in the same bed._

Upon entering the frat house, they find that the party had mostly died down. The only people remaining are those who have passed out on various pieces of furniture and the young looking boy Louis saw earlier having a drinking contest with a Spanish man with long, dark hair.

“Ten bucks on the jailbait,” Louis whispers loudly to Lestat as they pass. Lestat shushes him and leads him to a wall to lean against. Lestat leaves him there and goes to the kitchen. Louis can hear him cursing and rummaging through cabinets, looking for something.

This, Louis thinks to himself, would be a good time to just leave. The night’s already been weird and it would probably be best to cut his losses now and just go home. Sadly, before he achieves enough balance to act on this thought, Lestat returns.

Lestat is holding a salt shaker, a very old looking lime and a bottle of tequila in his hand. He offers his empty hand to Louis. “Come with me.” Louis bats aside Lestat’s offered hand but follows him out the back door.

Lestat closes the door behind them and lies down on the porch. “Join me,” he beckons. Louis lies down next to him and closes his eyes until the spinning stops. When he opens them, Lestat is still lying motionless next to him.

“What—” Louis starts to ask but Lestat hushes him.

“Shhh. Just look.” So Louis looks and lets Lestat narrate his thoughts about philosophy and the universe and who the fuck knows what else for a while.

All of a sudden, Lestat seems to remember why Louis is here in the first place. He interrupts his narration of black holes or something and rolls over to look at Louis. “Are you ready to continue your initiation?” he asks, holding up a bottle of tequila and a salt shaker. Louis agrees, mostly because he wants Tequila.

And that is how Louis finds himself with his shirt off and Lestat licking tequila off his stomach and salt off his neck.

After Lestat has poured about a third of the bottle onto Louis and drank less than half of it, the rest running down Louis’ sides onto the floor of the deck, they switch.

Lestat kneels above Louis and strips off his shirt. “Your turn,” he says.

~~~~

The bottle of Tequila is now empty and lying beside them somewhere. Louis probably drank even less of it than Lestat did but it is enough to make him feel completely smashed. Lestat is on top of him again, and has been sucking salt off his neck for the last fifteen minutes. The hickey Lestat gave earlier that week, which had been mercifully fading is probably even larger and darker than it was to begin with. Louis just wants to sleep but each time he almost drifts off, he feels Lestat bite deep enough into his neck to wake him back up.

Eventually Lestat stops. He turns Louis’ head to look at his neck and smirks. “Welcome to the brotherhood,” he says.

“Nghhhahhhhh,” says Louis.

Lestat laughs. “You, beautiful one, have had quite a lot to drink. Go find some place back here to throw up as I know you want to do and then meet me inside.” Lestat gets off him and Louis begins the long process of standing up.

Before Lestat goes back in the house, he calls out. “Louis!” Louis looks. “If you get lost out here on your way back, I’m not coming to look for you.”

~~~~

Louis manages not to get lost on his way back but it is a near thing. When he enters the house again, Lestat is talking to someone who must be his dad on the phone.

“How do you know I’m drunk, dad?” Lestat yells into his iPhone. “You’re blind!” Lestat ends the call and looks at Louis. “Come here,” he beckons.

Louis walks over to him and Lestat places a hand on his waist. “There was been something of an, um, oversight,” Lestat tells him.

Louis gazes up at him blearily. “What?”

“Nothing major,” says Lestat airily, leading Louis towards the staircase. “I just did not think to set up a bed for you to sleep in.”

“Whatever,” mutters Louis. “I can take the couch.”

“No,” says Lestat, surprisingly sharp. “You will bunk with me. It’s part of the initiation.” Louis groans as Lestat leads him up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms.

“Is this your room?” asks Louis, staring around at the unfamiliar clutter.

Lestat shrugs. “Probably.” He leads Louis over to a twin bed against the wall of the room.

When Louis sees the size of it, he tries to struggle out of Lestat’s grip. “Dude, no. I’ll just sleep on the floor.”

Lestat laughs again. “No you won’t. You see, I have this.” He pulls a bottle of extra strength aspirin out of his pocket. “You’ve drank quite a lot tonight. Your hangover tomorrow will probably literally kill you and you’re too drunk to find other painkillers in this house.”

Louis glares at him. “You’re such an asshole.”

Lestat smiles gleefully at him. “Get into bed, Louis.” Louis does and Lestat tosses him the painkillers. Louis knocks back a handful of them and tries to make himself comfortable. He stares at the ceiling only to find Jon Bon Jovi staring right back at him from a poster on Lestat’s ceiling.

“Really?” he asks, gesturing at the poster.

“Don’t you dare talk shit about Bon Jovi,” Lestat says as he climbs in behind him. Lestat shifts around for a minute before placing one hand in Louis’ hair and the other around his waist.

The last thing Louis remembers before passing out is Lestat brushing the hair away from his face and whispering softly in his ear.

_“No homo.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh that last scene, well, basically that last line is pretty much the entire reason this fic exists. All I wanted is for Lestat to say no homo and not to mean it like, at all. So then I wrote 18k of a universe to justify Lestat saying that. No regrets.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for mild homophobia and references to sexual situations in which one or both parties are intoxicated.

_You have to understand that being around Lestat was a significantly less annoying experience when I was drunk. It was not until I woke up the next morning with him curled around me and already an initiated member of the brotherhood that I fully comprehended how much of a douchebag he was._

Unconventional though Louis’ initiation had been, it did end up being a pretty decent sample of what life in Alpha Alpha Alpha was like. Namely the fact that both involved a lot of drinking, Lestat taking his shirt off, and a weirdly high amount of homoerotism.

Lestat’s possessiveness over Louis had not waned since that first night. He was very unwilling to let anyone else teach Louis anything about partying, university living or anything to do with Alpha Alpha Alpha. Louis hardly ever saw the other members of the house when he was sober. Though that might have been his fault. Frat-boy Louis, Alpha Alpha Alpha brother Louis only had two settings- shit-faced drunk with Lestat’s arm around him or sleeping off a hangover in a location where hopefully, Lestat couldn't find him or easily spoon him.

Louis still shared a room with Lestat but he hijacked a futon so he wouldn’t have to share the twin bed with him again. Although this didn’t stop Lestat from trying to crawl into bed with him. The first time it happened he pushed Lestat onto the floor as a way of waking him up but apparently that didn’t deter him from trying again the very next night, and the night after that. Louis would almost appreciate his determination if it wasn’t so damn creepy.

~~~~

Saturday meant party night. On this particular Saturday, Louis found himself being offered a beer bong full of sake after having already had more shots of vodka than he could count on both hands.

Through the cheering and booze induced haze, he heard a voice next to his ear. “You’ll probably die if you do that.” It was Lestat, who had managed managed to sneak up right behind Louis. “You’ll drink until you get alcohol poisoning and die. You’ve already drunk too much and even if you don’t end up another statistic of the perils of college drinking, you’ll be incredibly ill.”

Without lingering, Lestat turned and walks away. Louis, who was apparently drunk enough at this point that his body had ceased to obey him, drops the beer bong and starts following Lestat’s retreating back. “Fuck you Lestat, you don’t tell me what to do!” Lestat doesn't reply to Louis’ yell and disappears around a corner.

~~~~

Lestat’s playing fucking solitaire of all things when Louis finds him in the dinning room. He looks up as Louis enters and more quickly than Louis’ drunk mind can comprehend, Lestat is suddenly violating his personal space and pressing a finger to Louis’ lips.

“If I am to be your mentor,” Lestat murmurs. “It means that I do not only teach you things that you like. I must also show you the dangers of our lifestyle. Rule number one- alcohol poisoning fucking sucks.” Louis is not drunk enough for this level of dramatics or sexual harassment. He pushes Lestat off and moves to leave.

Lestat watches Louis leave, definitely not checking out his ass. But before Louis exits the room, Lestat seems to have a brainwave and speaks again. “Oh, and rule number two- herpes also sucks. Practice safe sex!” He throws a condom and Louis’ head. Louis is definitely not drunk enough to deal with Lestat right now.

~~~~

Lestat spends the next few weeks constantly proving himself to be a really shitty frat mentor. He doesn’t seem to know anything useful that Louis wants to know about the history of Alpha Alpha Alpha. Nor did he know or seem willing to share the perks of being a frat boy- the influence Louis might have on his classmates or teachers, which sorority girls would put out easily or, mostly importantly, how to get himself a separate fucking bedroom.

Each time Louis enquires about that last one, Lestat just gives some bullshit answer which range from “sorry man, we just don’t have the space right now,” to “dude, it’s just safer if we’re in the same room. What if someone broke in? Double the protection,” to “no, man. Just, no. Then there’d be two rooms and two of us and everything would be double and it would just be _hard_ man. Just leave it alone. Two is, it’s just too much.”

Louis eventually finds out that there is more than one spare room throughout the house and takes matters into his own hands. Lestat catches him dragging his futon down the stairs to an empty room one Sunday. The look on his face would suggest that Louis had just killed his favourite relative. Louis shoots him the middle finger as he drags the futon frame across the floor.

Louis installs a lock on the door of his new room the day after he moves into it. It proves a necessary measure of precaution to ensure a night of grope-free sleeping.

~~~~

_Lestat used the power that being a frat boy gave him to fuck people. Sometimes two, three a night. Sometimes more. He assured me they satisfied nothing more than a “momentary thirst” before he would move onto his next victim. A freshman girl was a favourite of his but he was the most insufferably triumphant when he managed to bag a straight guy._

Louis was drinking cheap wine from the bottle. It tasted fucking awful. Lestat, having managed to eagle eye this from across the room, was at Louis' side in an instant, ready to intervene. Grabbing one of the house’s champagne glasses, he filled it with Louis’ shitty wine before thrusting it back because, “it just tastes better that way man. If you’re gonna drink shit you might as well look classy.” Louis resigns himself to another night of Lestat heavily invading his personal space. Lestat almost immediately proves his theory correct as he starts playing with Louis’ hair.

Louis gazes around the room, doing his best to ignore Lestat. It was a lot of the same faces- sorority girls, his own Alpha Alpha Alpha brothers whose names he still doesn't know and underclassmen who couldn't get their own alcohol because weren’t 21. There is a new face tonight though. Louis only knows his last name- Freniere. Everyone on campus knew who Freniere was. Freniere is the heir of an old French family who owned a sugar company. He was due to inherit the company plus quite a bit of money when his father died but rumour was that there were some conditions attached to this inheritance. Lestat, who had apparently been following Louis’ gaze, lights up at the sight of the young man. He nudges Louis hard in the ribs and points at the young Freniere. “Dibs.” Louis shrugs. He's more interested in Freniere’s younger sister. She's a freshman who has the sort of face that belongs anywhere else but at a college frat party. She looks distinctly out of place. Louis likes that about her.

Lestat has already vanished from Louis’ side, chatting up the Freniere boy, offering him alcohol which, Louis knew, would eventually evolve into Lestat offering up his bed. Louis downs his glass of shitty wine. He's so fucking glad they aren't sharing a room anymore.

~~~~

It turns out Freniere’s sexuality becomes a lot more fluid after a few drinks. Less than two hours later and Freniere is leaving with some Spanish guy while Lestat is out on a beer run. He returns just in time to see Freniere and his new friend walk out the door.

Lestat storms over to where Louis is drinking alone in a corner, thinking deep existential thoughts. “Where’s Freniere going?”

Louis shrugs. “Get laid I guess.”

Lestat looks thunderous. “Not with that guy he’s not. I will be the first man to touch that dude’s dick, so help me God.” The look of determination on Lestat’s face is a little frightening. Louis follows after him, hoping that whatever bullshit Lestat is about to take part in won’t negatively impact his life in some way.

“What are you gonna do?” asks Louis, jogging to catch up to Lestat.

“I don’t know. Fight him I guess.”

Louis almost laughs. “You’re gonna fight this guy over the rights to being some dude’s first gay experience?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.”

It turns out Lestat doesn’t need to intervene. By the time they catch up to the two men, the Spanish guy is walking away, yelling about fucking gay shit and how much he likes boobs and stuff. Lestat’s eyes are positively sparkling in the dark. “It’s fucking Christmas,” he whispers, and then approaches the vulnerable heir.

Louis gives up and goes to bed.

~~~~

Louis knew that Lestat had gotten what he wanted. He always did. But it was something else to see first hand, something Louis really didn’t want to see. On the Tuesday after the party, he’d come home from class and opened the door to find Lestat blowing Freniere on the couch.

“You’re kidding right?” Louis says, loudly.

Lestat turns to face him, wiping his mouth lewdly. “Unless you’d like to join us, I suggest you fuck off.”

“For fuck’s sake Lestat, I sit on that couch. I _sleep_ on that couch!”

“I know,” Lestat grins at him. “Sweet dreams, Louis.” Lestat returns to what he was doing, with, if anything, even more vigour.

~~~~

Louis tries diligently to ignore that whole situation after that incident but that task is made difficult when, less than a week later, Lestat corners him while he’s eating breakfast.

“Wanna hear what I did today?” Lestat asks, a nearly maniacal grin playing across his face.

“No,” says Louis, returning to his cereal.

Lestat rolls his eyes and grabs Louis’ spoon from him, sticking it in his own mouth. “What the fuck dude?!” Louis yells, jumping up. “That was like the last clean spoon!”

“Listen to me,” Lestat growls.

“You’re such an asshole,” says Louis, but sits down nonetheless.

“I,” begins Lestat, importantly. “Ruined a five generation family dynasty today.” Louis sits up a little straighter, actually paying attention now. “You know Freniere?” Lestat asks.

“Do you even know his first name?” Louis interrupts.

“Yes,” says Lestat, shortly.

“And that is…”

“Question period has finished,” snaps Lestat. “Anyway, so it turns out he really likes dick. And he wants the world to know. He came out to his parents last week. It turns out daddy-dearest isn’t so good with his son’s new-found love of cock. So he’s disowned now. His father’s apparently selling the company. Something about how his kids have no respect for old-fashioned values and his offspring can’t be trusted to not fuck up his legacy.”

“What?” Louis exclaims. “But what about his sisters? That money was theirs too!”

Lestat shrugs. “Not my problem. I just wanted to share with you that my blowjob skills brought down a family empire. Anyways, I should probably go to class for once, see you.” Lestat dunks the spoon back in Louis’ bowl and blows him a kiss as he leaves.

Louis sees Freniere’s sister, Babette later and all his hopes that Lestat was exaggerating are proven untrue by the look on her face. Babette clearly has the weight of the world on her shoulders, all because of Lestat’s dick (and her brother’s, Louis supposed), the asshole.

~~~~

In hindsight, coming to Babette’s dorm late at night was not the classiest move. He’s clearly been spending too much time with Lestat. In his defence, Babette lets him in.

“I’m sorry to hear about your family troubles,” Louis begins, lamely.

“Fuck you.”

“Look, it will be super difficult, but it’s you who needs to take over now. Get your degree, show to your father that it’s you who should run the company. You can do this Babette.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Can you get out of my room now?”

Louis leaves, feeling like he’s really made a difference.


	4. Chapter 4

_Despite what the rest of the brotherhood might say, it was definitely not my fault that our first frat house burned down._

“Fuck you, Louis. It was totally your fault,” Lestat growls.

Louis adjusts his hold on the box he and Lestat are bringing in the door of their new frat house. Louis had already moved all of his things but Lestat was only half done and he’d brought over more boxes than any of their other housemates. “All I did was tell the Pan-African Association that they could have their bonfire celebration at our house,” Louis defends. "Everything that happened that night was just a freak accident."

“You set a torch to the front door!” Lestat yells.

“You can’t prove that.”

“I saw you!”

“Is that really what this is about? Or is this about the fact that your father died? It’s Ok Lestat, I won’t tell the others if you cry.”

Lestat snarls at him. “Is _that_ what this is really about or are you just pissed that in your attempts to get laid, you set Babette’s carpet on fire on the same night you _burned our house down?”_

“Let me just recall here," says Louis, mock-thoughtfully. "Who was it that entered her room very unannounced causing her to drop the candle onto the surprisingly flammable carpet? If memory serves, it was you!”

One of the other frat members stumbles into the hallway. He’s auburn haired and exceptionally young. Louis would think he’s a not a frat brother at all but a high school student had he not walked out of a room with such a visible sense of entitlement that he could be nothing other than an Alpha Alpha Alpha brother. “You’re both fucking assholes,” the auburn boy pipes in. “Now will you please keep it down? We don’t all want to be dragged into your marital spat.”

Lestat rolls his eyes. Louis nods and apologizes. Before he heads back to his room, the boy looks back at Louis. “By the way, it was totally your fault, dude.”

Lestat raises a triumphant eyebrow.

“How old is he?” Louis asks, frowning at the back of the retreating boy. He really does look quite young.

“Did you know,” Lestat says. “That the legal age of consent in Serbia is 14?”

Louis frowns. “That’s not an answer. And also really disturbing.” Lestat winks at him and walks away. Louis feels the sudden need for a shower.

~~~~

The new frat house is different from the last one. It feels a lot more like home to Louis. They’ve nicknamed it Rue Royale. It’s farther off campus and more expensive but Lestat, out of the never-ending pool of money he seems to have, (whenever anyone asks Lestat where he gets his money from, he just mumbles something about wise investments ages ago) purchases it without even negotiating for a lower price. He’s also taken the bulk of rent and furnished it for them. It’s pretentious as hell, looking like something from the 1800’s instead of the home of almost a dozen frat boys but Louis loves it. He finally feels at home.

~~~~

_I’m pretty sure that I could track all the trouble this year back to the day Lestat tried to apologize to me with hookers._

Louis, for the first time this year feels comfortable and almost happy. (Secretly he thinks to himself stuff about cleansing fire and new beginnings but the others don’t need to know that; they still blame him for the destruction of their last house.) Unfortunately, and in hindsight completely unsurprisingly, as soon as Louis begins to feel at ease with his life, Lestat ruins it.

Louis comes home from economics class to find Lestat lounging on the living room sofa with two women draped around him. Not to make generalizations and stereotypes based on appearance, but the women are most definitely prostitutes. Lestat is hanging out on their front room sofa on a Tuesday afternoon with two hookers. For the thousandth and not last time, Louis regrets speaking to Lestat at that party during his first week.

Louis expects Lestat to yell at him to get out, or perhaps for him to act indifferently to his presence. what Louis does not expect is for Lestat to jump off the couch and away from his hookers with a smile on his face at Louis’ appearance. “Louis! I have a surprise for you!” Louis feels a sense of dread like ice water in his veins at the sound of those words.

“These two lovely ladies are Candy and Red Velvet and despite their dessert themed names, they are not snacks. They are sex workers.” Lestat is directly behind him now, arms draped over Louis’ shoulders. “I know everyone’s been kind of bitching at you recently and I too, have been less than my charming self.” Louis rolls his eyes. “And I wanted to make it up to you so… I thought maybe we could share. What do you want? Threesome? Foursome? Wanna Eiffel Tower one of them?”

Louis shakes Lestat’s arms off of him and backs slowly towards his room. “I’m so done. I’m moving out. This is ridiculous.”

“Oh come on,” Lestat coaxes. “Live a little.”

“Why,” Louis asks sadly. “Must you do this? Constantly.”

“Because it’s _fun._ You know what they say, Louis, the only people who don’t have fun are the people who aren’t any.”

“I’ve never heard anybody say that,” Louis says. “And you,” he continues. “Are a really bad influence.”

Lestat laughs in delight “Bad am I? Want to come take some of your anger out? Tell me what a naughty boy I am?” Lestat teases, licking his lips suggestively.

“No homo,” he adds, as an afterthought.

Louis retreats to his bedroom where hopefully he can be spared at least the worst of the crazy.

“It’s cool if you just want to watch!” Lestat calls after him.

~~~~

It’s a long afternoon. Lestat definitely has sex with those prostitutes. Loudly. At one point Louis hears Lestat say, “lie still, love. This is your coffin.” Louis doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know.


	5. Chapter 5

_Had I only packed up my things the moment I said I was moving out. Had I only avoided the house for a few days. Had Lestat only not known me well enough to know he had a trump card I could have spared myself a significant amount of insanity. Unfortunately, Lestat’s family came to visit and it ended badly for all of us. It probably could have been avoided, for me at least. But instead, I got dragged down into the de Lioncourt family’s special brand of crazy._

Louis spends the days after the hooker incident drinking and fuming, ready to pack up and leave once his perpetual hangover passes. Unfortunately, before he gets the chance, Lestat fucks it up. Because of course he does.

Louis come home from Friday’s class with the professor gifting them a weekend of no homework, telling them to enjoy themselves. Louis takes this free time as a sign that he is going to move out this weekend. But his elaborate fantasy of not living with Lestat is interrupted when he enters Rue Royale.

There is a severe looking blonde woman sitting on the couch. She looks middle-aged but in a way where she's probably looked like that since she was fifteen and will probably look the exact same long after everyone around her has aged and died. Louis wonders briefly if she’s another sex worker (probably a more expensive one). The woman on the sofa narrows her eyes at him as if she had heard the thought that just passed through his head. Louis feels the heat rise in his cheeks.

Before he can make his escape, Lestat exits the kitchen in an apron carrying a tray of cookies. To complete this most unsettling of images, a small blonde girl is trailing behind him. Fuck. This house is completely unsuitable for children. The girl's mere presence here will probably get them all arrested.

Lestat places the tray of cookies on one of the ostentatious side tables the room has and then goes to sit beside the blonde woman on the sofa. The small blonde girl crawls into the woman's lap. Looking at them all like that, Louis doesn’t know how he didn’t immediately get that they’re related. The blonde woman can only be Lestat’s mother and the girl must be his sister. Louis hopes it’s his sister anyway. He doesn’t want to think of 16-year old Lestat procreating.

“Ah Louis! I suppose introductions are in order!” Lestat has his arm draped nonchalantly around his mother’s shoulder. It should be fine, just a casual, familial affection but something about how casual and familiar the gesture is creeps Louis out. “This most beautiful woman to my left is my mother, Gabrielle.” Louis walks towards her. She seems like the woman one would bow to and quite without meaning to, Louis’ spine starts to bend. He catches himself and holds out a hand for her to shake instead. She grasps it, looking at his face and hunchback stance with the same intensity as she had earlier. Louis feels like he’s being x-rayed, or that his mind is being read. It’s a singularly uncomfortable experience.

“And this _petite fille,_ ” Lestat continues. “Is my sister, Claudia.” Louis actually does bow to her, which makes her smile at him and hold out a hand which Louis kisses like one would a member of royalty.

This brief introduction seems to be the end of the de Lioncourt family reunion. Claudia climbs off her mothers’s lap as Gabrielle stands. “Well darling, it was wonderful to meet your…” She looks at Louis, back to Lestat and at Louis once more. _“Friends._ But I have much to attend to and must be off.” Lestat rises too and walks her to the door. Louis watches Lestat say goodbye to his mother and kiss her. Louis looks away when it goes on slightly too long for him to be comfortable with.

“So that was my mom,” Lestat says unnecessarily after Gabrielle has left. “She’s going on some safari or something and needed someone to watch Claudia now that my dad’s dead.” Louis is momentarily shocked by how casual Lestat had discussed his recently dead father that the true horror of what he’s saying doesn’t sink in right away. But when it does, it hits him like a semi-truck.

“She’s staying _here_?!” he says, gesturing at Claudia. “Is that even legal?”

Lestat shrugs. “Not sure, but whatever. No big deal. If the cops come searching the place for signs that children secretly live here we’ll just hide her in a suitcase or something. She’s small and easily concealable.” Louis collapses on the sofa with his eyes closed. Maybe if he can’t see this insanity, it will just go away...

It doesn’t.

Lestat sidles up behind him, and places his hands on Louis’ shoulders. “Think about it Louis, we’d get to play house. We’d get to be her dads. We'd be a family. We’d piss off the conservatives,” Lestat finishes, in a sing-song voice.

Louis knows the battle is lost. Not because of any of the points Lestat made, but because Louis has lived in this frat long enough to know that it is no place for a child. He knows it, Lestat knows it and Lestat knows that Louis has a big enough conscience to not leave a goddamn child in a frat house without the closest thing to adult supervision they have… Which is Louis.

Lestat laughs when Louis says this last bit out loud and tells him fondly that being a buzzkill is not the same as being adult supervision.

~~~~

They take Claudia out for ice cream because neither of them know what fucking else to do with a five-year old. Claudia orders some alarmingly red strawberry flavour which she finishes quickly and messily.

“I want some more,” Claudia demands, the remains of her red ice cream now smeared on and around her mouth.

Lestat rolls his eyes and kneels down to Claudia’s eye level. He looks at Louis and sighs dramatically. “I try and keep her safe from the horrible childhood obesity epidemic that plagues this country and yet…”

“I want some more,” Claudia repeats.

“And I, _mon cherie_ , want Louis to put out and yet…” Lestat pauses and turns to Louis. “Speaking of sleeping with people, do we know where Claudia is sleeping tonight? I don’t think we have a spare bed.”

Louis throws his ice cream at Lestat for just bringing up this oversight now. Sadly, Lestat kneels to talk to Claudia again so the ice cream misses, instead hitting the wall where his head had just been.

“I think it’s best you share with Louis while you’re here," Lestat is telling Claudia. "My bed is no place for a girl of your age and in our house, Louis’ is the least likely to have company in it.” Claudia nods in agreement. Louis feels a bit hurt that even a kindergartener knows how little action he gets.

~~~~

_Claudia took to us quickly. And that was a good thing for a while. With her under our roof, we remembered to clean up after ourselves, buy drinks that weren’t alcoholic and the heavily enforced Topless Tuesday parties previously held at our house were thankfully offloaded onto a nearby sorority. In an effort to make up for the fact that her mother abandoned her and she was currently residing in a frat house, we bought her everything, doted on her. Lestat and I tried to have it so the little girl could want for nothing. And I have to admit, we were a very good team. I feared however, that as good an influence as she was having on our house, the influence we had on her was much less so._

“Claudia,” Lestat announces, as he strides into Louis’ bedroom and throws himself onto the bed, head landing in Louis’ lap so casually Louis could almost believe it was an accident. “Is the best wingman _ever._ ”

Louis frowns. “Is this story one where if I so much as hear it, Child and Family Services would have grounds to arrest me too?”

Lestat lazily swats at him from the awkward angle his position provides. “Don’t be such a bitch, Louis. CFS isn’t going to come to a frat house. We’re like, above the law. On that note, I notice that the bed we bought her looks distinctly unused. Don’t you think CFS would have a problem with her sharing a bed with a 23 year-old man who isn't a relative when she has other sleeping accommodations?”

“Probably.”

“Anyway,” Lestat continues. “I hope you don’t feel the part of the neglected spouse but seriously, Claudia is a devious little charm. Do you know how easy it is to pull a woman after I’ve introduced Claudia as my sister who I must care for in place of my absentee mother?” A flash of something that looks almost like sadness passes over Lestat’s face as he mentions Gabrielle. Louis doesn’t mention it, he just lets Lestat finish his morally horrific story. “And Claudia plays her part so well.”

Louis wants to tell Lestat that he’s happy for him. He’s long since learned that the path of least resistance is the quickest way to get Lestat out of his room. Lestat grows bored eventually of his lack of reaction and goes to annoy someone else, probably many someones in Louis’s stead. But before he can get the words out, Lestat continues speaking. “She outdid herself last night.” The smugness in Lestat’s smirk as he says these words is one of the more concerning things Louis has seen this year. “Distracted this guy’s girlfriend with some story about how she couldn’t find her mommy and she had been a good girl and phoned her brother but he had to drive all the way across town to get her and would be a while. So this lovely young woman sat with her while her boyfriend sucked me off in the bathroom.” Lestat actually giggles as he says this. “And when I showed up, playing the part of heroic brother, the girlfriend slipped me her phone number.” Lestat of course still has this and he brandishes it in Louis’ face as proof, grinning broadly.

“I taught Claudia how to correctly set a table according to the international standard,” Louis offers.

“Of course you did. Did you also teach her the finer points of existential philosophy?”

“No…” Louis says, guiltily. He might have done exactly that last evening.

~~~~

Things start to change between Lestat and Claudia. It’s gradual at first, but after a while the chill in their gaze when they look at each other becomes all too apparent. Another clue that something is souring between them is that Lestat has stopped taking her on evening adventures the way he used to.

Lestat, for his part, is surprisingly gentlemanly about it. He mostly just doesn’t engage with Claudia, ignoring her surprisingly cutting insults and often offloading her onto Louis. Louis doesn’t mind. It becomes a case of wherever Claudia is, Lestat isn’t which suits Louis just fine. Privately, Louis finds himself impressed that Lestat managed to rise above the level of a five-year old and be the more mature person in their sudden feud. But then the day comes when Claudia goes too far...

“I can’t believe you cockblocked me!” Lestat is yelling. Louis is hungover and has had far too little sleep to deal with this. He rolls over in his bed and tries to block them out but shrill voices seem to be a de Lioncourt family trait. This new development is worrying. Louis has the feeling that if Lestat and Claudia continue to be at odds, something very,  _very_ bad will happen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for characters being drugged without their consent.

_Claudia began to act out more and more. First it was directed solely at Lestat but soon even I was not safe from her tiny wrath. Once she accused me of kidnapping her and stormed out after yelling that she hated me. I remember asking Lestat why she was going through the teenage angst phase about ten tears early. Lestat just shrugged and told me early development ran in the family and that I should probably go find her. In hindsight, perhaps I understand. Claudia felt trapped on a college campus. There was very little we could take her to as so much on campus was restricted to her because of her age. This also made her nearly completely dependent on us which I don't think she was ever particularly pleased with. I sympathized with her plight of being trapped in the damn Alpha Alpha Alpha frat house as Lestat had done much the same to me. Between that grudge and my desire to please the ever grumpy Claudia, I agreed to her plan to rid ourselves of Lestat._

Lestat was spending the morning’s breakfast trying to convince Louis that Claudia was the kid from _The Omen_ or some shit.

“She’s evil!” Lestat insists. “She has it in for me.”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “She’s a child.”

“She’s Satan!”

“She’s _five_.”

Lestat throws his hands in the air in exasperation. “You’ll see!” he declares, gesturing wildly around the room. “You’ll all see!” he yells to the room, which is empty except for himself and Louis.

Louis goes to class, thinking it best to leave Lestat alone with his crazy.

~~~~

When Louis returns from class, Claudia corners him, a glint in her eye that Louis tries very hard not to think of as evil. Apparently while Louis had been at class, balancing chemical equations, Claudia had come up with a plan to rid themselves of Lestat for good.

“I feel somewhat uncomfortable with this plan,” Louis admits as Claudia outlines a plan that makes him realize Lestat wasn’t completely nuts when he said Claudia had it in for him.

“More uncomfortable than you feel when he crawls into your bed at three in the morning because his one-night stand didn’t know how to spoon properly?” Claudia asks.

“Point. But still, what we’re planning on doing is pretty damn illegal.”

“So is taking care of a five-year old in a frat house,” Claudia points out. “You know he deserves to be expelled anyways.” Louis can’t argue with that. Off the top of his head, he can think of seventeen things Lestat has done in the past few months which ought to have him banned from campus.

“Come on,” Claudia wheedles. “You can set something on fire at the end…” Checkmate.

“Ok,” agrees Louis, just as Lestat strolls into the room, completely unaware of their scheming.

“You know who’s really good at fingering?” Lestat begins. “Musicians. Oh my god their dexterity.” A self-satisfied smirk lights up his face as he straddles one of the antique kitchen chairs. “Oh, hi Claudia,” he says, pretending to have just noticed her. “Ignore everything I just said. You’re too young to hear such things.”

Claudia glares at him. “No problem,” she says, before stalking off.

“I’m thinking about initiating my new musician friend into our most sacred order,” Lestat tells Louis. “Would you like a little brother, Louis?”

“I honestly don’t care.”

“Are you sure? Don’t you want to help me… initiate him?” Lestat leers.

“I really don’t.”

Lestat pouts, making him look like a spoiled child. “Well. Everybody’s decided to be a douche today and I’ve only come twice so far. Don’t wait up bitches!” Lestat leaves, strutting in a way that would put supermodels to shame. Louis breathes the sigh of relief he always does when Lestat exits.

~~~~

Days go by without incident until Louis wakes one night to find Lestat on top of him. After a brief flash of bizarre nostalgia to when this used to be a nearly nightly occurrence, he turfs Lestat off him and onto the floor, thankful that he had fallen asleep on the couch, instead of in his room where Claudia slept.

Lestat raises his hands in surrender. “No homo,” he says as a peace offering.

Claudia wanders out of her room, presumably woken by the noise of Lestat hitting the floor. Unexpectedly, her face breaks into a grin when she sees her older brother and goes to hug him.

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Lestat mouths to Louis over Claudia’s head. Louis shrugs, fully bemused.

Claudia breaks the hug and gazes up at Lestat. “I have come to make peace with you,” she announces.

“Oh?” Lestat laughs.

“Yes. Despite the fact that you’re a total d-bag—”

“Where did you learn that word?” Louis demands.

Claudia rolls her eyes “I live in a frat house,” she says slowly, as though Louis were both foreign and very stupid. “Now, as I was saying, though you, Lestat, are generally a complete douche, you are still my brother and I still live here and I would very much like to stop fighting. Can we not go back to the way things were?”

“Sure,” Lestat agrees. Louis feels a brief swell of hope at that single word, one immediately punctured as Lestat continues speaking. “If you stop being a brat and cockblocking me. Also stop asking me such uncomfortable questions. I’m not the person you go to for such information.”

“Until mother returns, You’re my primary caregiver!” Claudia shouts.

“Face it darling,” Lestat says, examining his nails. “Mother’s probably forgotten about you. She won’t be back for a while and you’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“At least I don’t have a picture of mother in a bikini hidden in my sock drawer,” Claudia retorts.

Lestat pales. “I hope you grow up not hot!” He yells.

Louis expects Claudia to explode and for a second, it looks like she’s going to. But instead, she schools her features into a smile and looks at Lestat. “Don’t be ridiculous. Have you seen our genetics? That’s never going to happen. And I’m sorry about the cockblocking,” she continues. “I’ve made it up to you.” Lestat’s eyebrows raise, intrigued. “Look!” Claudia grabs his hand and pulls him into the kitchen.

There are two boys slumped at the kitchen table. They’re beautiful and clearly freshmen, that air of virginity and only recently found freedom hangs around them. Lestat stops in his tracks when he sees them.

“You’ve outdone yourself,” he tells Claudia, striding over to the first boy. Lestat strokes a finger down the boy’s cheek in attempt to raise him from his stupor. No response. Frowning, he grabs the boy’s wrist and raises it from the table. The boy remains unconscious and malleable.

“Claudia,” says Lestat, turning around very slowly. “Did you roofie these boys?”

Claudia gives him her most dazzling smile. “Maybe,” she giggles. “And you might want to check that one’s phone, there might be a rather incriminating outgoing text."

Swearing, Lestat storms back to the boys and grabs the phone from the second boy’s lax hand. Scrolling to the recently sent messages, he finds the one Claudia was referring to.

     To: Campus Security

         roofies. help. alphax3

“They should be here any minute,” Claudia gleefully informs him. This was not what Louis had signed up for.

“Devil!” Lestat is yelling at her. “You evil little midget! I’d have been better off if that creepy kid from _The Omen_ was my sibling!” Claudia, meanwhile, has grabbed a knife off the counter.

Louis sees this. “Claudia…” he warns. “Do not. Do not do the thing.” But Claudia has a glint of madness in her eyes and there are still two unconscious freshmen at the table and panicking, knowing this has gone too far, Louis yells at Lestat to run. Lestat does, jumping out of the open kitchen window and sprinting off into the darkness before campus security shows up.

~~~~

After security leaves, the two barely conscious boys in tow, now with Lestat as a suspect, Claudia tries to follow Louis back to his room.

“No,” he says. “No, not cool. So not cool.”

"Are you just mad that you didn't get to set anything on fire?" Claudia asks. "Because you would have if you followed the plan."

"The plan was insane!" Louis yells. "That went way too far. That, that was... so not cool."

Claudia looks up at him with watery eyes. “We’re rid of him now. It worked didn’t it? Please Louis, I already lost my brother, don’t have me lose you too. Who will take care of me then?”

More than ever, Louis sees the family resemblance between her and Lestat. “So not cool,” he repeats, incapable of forming more complex thoughts.

“Spring break is coming up, Louis. We could be rid of this house, this hateful prison. You could show me this country, take me anywhere. We’re free now and I need you. I love you.” And Louis, who’d always been a sucker, nods and lets Claudia crawl into his bed before he goes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you disappointed that nothing got set on fire here? Because I am. I planned on it but it just didn't fit. Sometimes things don't work out the way you, I, or Louis want them to.


	7. Chapter 7

With Lestat gone, end of term is very uneventful. It’s the last day of class and Louis and Claudia are packing. Louis has chosen to feel excitement rather than guilt and during break, is taking Claudia on a road trip to find “The Real America." He doesn’t see how Claudia’s eyes roll at that term every time he’s not looking. Even at five years old, she thinks the concept is stupid.

In hindsight, Louis should have known better than to be lulled into a false sense of security. Lestat, who has been blissfully not present for a fortnight, almost ruins everything. Again.

One minute Louis is folding his socks and the next, he hears the door slam and there stands Lestat. He’s positively shaking with rage and it looks like he hasn’t showered since the day he ran out. Claudia screams at the site of him. Lestat, with an expression that reminds Louis far too much of the Terminator begins to stalk towards her. Louis jumps in front of her, as if shielding her from a bullet. The comparison might not be too far off, given the murderous look in Lestat’s eyes.

“Stop,” Louis says, placing a palm on Lestat’s chest. “Don’t come any closer. I’ll call campus security. Get out of here.”

Lestat doesn’t stop. He keeps advancing, forcing Louis and Claudia to back up. Louis starts throwing things at him— his cellphone, a lamp, and then, rather foolishly, he clears everything off a side table to throw that at him too. This includes one of the scented candles Louis loves so much. The candle ignites the carpet it falls onto. The fire spreads quickly, which kind of makes sense. The carpet is saturated in dozens of parties' worth of spilled booze by this point. The upside of all of this is that the fire creates a barrier between Louis and the screaming Claudia and Lestat. But Louis can see Lestat through the flame and he’s looking at Louis and then at the fire with a look that clearly says, _“Really? Again?”_

It’s at this point that campus security shows up. At the sight of the fire they call for an evacuation and in the ensuing confusion of several frat boys rushing out the door, Lestat tries to make his escape. He gets about halfway to the door when one of the security guys grabs him and drags him away while the other one calls the fire department.

~~~~

_It was all over by morning. The house was full of smoke, the carpet had been almost entirely burnt black and Lestat had been expelled. We’d all been temporarily evicted from the house as it was renovated and vented. Not that it mattered, it was spring break and Claudia and I were off to see The Real America. I tried not to think of Lestat over spring break. Whatever he deserved, I don’t think he deserved as bad as what happened to him. What Claudia did to him. What I did to him. Sometimes as I sat at a diner with a sullen Claudia in the middle of nowhere, I’d imagine what snarky comments Lestat would have to say about the food or the waitress’s makeup. But Lestat was gone from my life. I expected never to see him again. I was wrong but it was yet months before I would lay eyes on him and in the meantime, I focused on Claudia._

Louis and Claudia travel as though they are on the run. In some ways perhaps they are. Louis drives too fast and they never stay anywhere too long, the manic energy that has been present in both of them since Lestat’s last and unexpected visit still thrums in their veins. Louis doesn’t say it to Claudia— though perhaps she feels that way too— but every time they stay somewhere for too long he feels as though Lestat could find them. As if when they return to the same hotel room for a second or third night he will be there, lounging on the bed, ready to tell Louis that if he wanted to experience “The Real America”, Lestat would gladly have fucked him missionary style in the middle of a Walmart with Bruce Springsteen playing in the background. But maybe if he and Claudia drove fast enough and found a small enough town, they could find a piece of paradise where his blond hair and smug grin couldn't find them.

What they forgot to take into account on this trip is that small town America is boring as shit. And despite Lestat’s lack of knowledge on most academic subjects, the monotony of the trip did little to distract the two from the silence that followed them where Lestat’s sarcastic comments usually would have been.

As it was, Louis found no answers on the trip, nor did he find The Real America he had wished to show Claudia. He had rather hoped that the trip might impart some great knowledge unto him. That while driving through the open roads of the nation, an idea would occur to him that would allow him to stop attracting the attention of douchebags and stop being so much of one himself.

Sadly, unlike the many great American road novels Louis had devoured, he found no great wisdom except to fill up at any gas station you see, never assume there will be another one in a few miles. Perhaps it’s just him or perhaps it’s Claudia. After all, none of the protagonists in Louis’ beloved books had a five year old girl as a companion and maybe there was a reason why.

There were some highlights to their pointless trip. He and Claudia stopped in a town where the locals swore they had an infestation of vampires that hunted them by night. That was something new. Louis’ first thought, though he was ashamed to admit it to himself, was that Lestat would have loved this and that it would have been quite entertaining to see what Lestat would have said to these very strange town citizens.

Not long after that incident, Louis got into a fight with a drunk homeless guy in a graveyard while Claudia sat on the headstone and watched, the look on her face suggested that she wished she had popcorn to complete the spectacle in front of her.

~~~~

“I will take you to Paris one day. It is beautiful and far more interesting than this,” Louis promises Claudia. It is their last day of break and Louis is returning to school, feeling exactly as enlightened as he had when he left.

“I’m not sure you’re still allowed to say what’s interesting,” says Claudia. “You lost that right after our third stop on a farm to talk to some good, old fashioned, hard-working real folks.”

“I thought it would be good for us to see citizens doing some honest, hands-on work as a way of life.”

“One of the farms was a large scale grow-op, Louis!”

The rest of the ride passes in silence.

~~~~

The return to the Alpha Alpha Alpha house is not as terrible as Louis had expected. He subconsciously tenses as he walked through the door, ready for Lestat to be standing right behind it or doing something unmentionable on the couch but Lestat is only present in his noticeable absence.

“It’s ours now,” declares Claudia. And Louis silently agrees with her. With Lestat gone, the house is theirs, as are their lives. Louis remembers seeing a quote on Facebook from one of his classmates— _“new semester, new you! <3.” _Louis thinks he has never connected more strongly with a piece of text in his life.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this fic came really easily to me. The story just generally lent itself so well to me adapting it into my douchey frat boy version except this middle bit. That bit in the novel between them ridding themselves of Lestat and landing in Paris where they're just going around Europe... doin stuff just really blocked me. Also now that Lestat's absent from the story it became harder to write. He was by far the easiest to write dialogue for so this chapter was the hardest and also my least favourite.


	8. Chapter 8

_As I had mentioned before, I was very concerned about the impact that living on a college campus, in a frat house would have on a young girl. Over time, it became more and more apparent that my fears were rightly placed. Claudia began to grow curious about things well beyond her years and began asking questions. This lead to some very awkward moments I did my best to avoid entirely._

Claudia still sleeps in Louis’ room. Being five, she usually falls asleep before 9:00 which suits Louis just fine. He usually spends the later portion of the night finishing homework or drinking to forget that he has homework. Either option leaves him exhausted and passing out the minute his head hits the pillow. Tonight though, Claudia is still awake when Louis comes in, drunk off his ass and with an economics paper due in two days’ time.

“Louis?” she asks softly. Louis gazes around the room, unable to find her until he realizes that during his drunken search, she has moved to stand right in front of him.

“Can I ask you a question?” No good can come of this but like with her brother, it tends to be the easiest course of action to just give up at the outset. The de Lioncourts have a way of getting what they want anyway so Louis shrugs and gives a vague hand motion that indicates Claudia can.

“What’s it like…. making love?” she finishes in a whisper.

“Nope,” says Louis. “nope. No, no no no no.”

“Don’t tell me it’s been so long that you’ve forgotten… Or have you little more experience than me in the matter?” Claudia asks.

With one last drunkly defiant “nope!”, Louis exits the bedroom and the house, walking aimlessly around the quad, avoiding going back to that house and that conversation.

~~~~

An unknown amount of time has passed when he becomes aware of footsteps behind him. Or at least, Louis thinks he hears footsteps. He stops, waiting for the person behind him to pass but the footsteps stop too. Assuming he’s just drunk (a correct assumption), and that the sound is just a product of his inebriated mind, Louis keeps walking but again, he swears he hears someone right behind him.

This time, Louis turns around and sees a tall man standing in a street light, clearly the closest substitute he has for dramatic lighting. Louis rolls his eyes. “Drama students,” he says to himself. The man is wearing a cape and top hat because of course he is.

Louis notices that the man, like him, is swaying on the spot and at first, thinks him to be drunk as Louis himself is. But after Louis scratches his nose and the man follows suit, Louis realizes he’s being mimicked.

“Fuck your mime shit!” Louis yells at the stranger and begins to walk away. But the man darts in front of him, obnoxiously miming apologies and sadness. Louis takes a drunken swing at him.

This was a mistake. The guy is clearly some sort of martial artist because Louis finds himself on his back with a boot on his neck and he’s not quite sure how it got to this point.

Hazily, and from the strange angle his head is currently being held at, Louis sees a second, somewhat familiar figure appear. It’s one of the brothers from his frat house. It’s the jailbait one and he’s laughing at Louis.

“You alright?” Jailbait asks before motioning something at the fucking mime ninja that makes him remove his boot from Louis' windpipe.

“Yeah,” croaks Louis as he stands up, throat, tailbone and ego bruised.

“I’m sorry about him,” the boy says. “He won’t hurt you again. But… While you’re here… We’re having an avant garde drama performance tomorrow and you should totally come. Support the Alpha Alpha Alpha brotherhood and all that.”

“Avante garde drama performance. Of course you are,” Louis mutters, not as quietly as he thinks.

“You can bring the little girl if you can’t find a babysitter,” the boy offers.

“Fuck it. Sure,” says Louis. “Can I ask a favour though?” The boy shrugs.

“Do you have a couch or something I can sleep on? My room is… not an option right now.” Louis tries to avoid the look the boy and his companion give each other at Louis' admittedly suggestive sounding request. “I’m too drunk to fuck you,” he adds.

“Yeah, alright,” the boy agrees. “Let’s get you home.”

Jailbait’s room looks a little like a sex dungeon but there’s a couch in the corner so that’s alright then. Louis flops onto it, thankful he didn’t have to spend the night in the library.

“I’m Armand by the way." Jailbait says, as he hands Louis a blanket. "Something tells me you don’t remember my name.” Louis gives him a drunken thumbs up as acknowledgement and then passes out on Armand’s sofa.

~~~~

Louis wakes up the next morning, throws up on Armand’s carpet and figures if he wasn’t obligated to see Armand’s drama thing before, he sure as shit is now. So, after class that day, he tells Claudia to dress up (and is relieved to see the joy she takes at the request. There are still elements of a normal little girl in her, thank god.) and they walk to the venue.

“Is this a sex club?” Claudia whispers as they draw near.

“How do you even know that term?” Louis asks, appalled.

“I think the bigger issue here is you brining me _to a sex club,_ ” Claudia hisses back.

“I’m… honestly not sure if it is or not,” admits Louis. “Let’s see if they let you in and that will decide it.”

The doorman waves them through at sight of the invitation Armand had left on the arm of the couch Louis slept on but Claudia isn’t convinced. “Option A,” she says, “this is not a sex club.” Louis nods.

“OR,” she continues, “Option B, this is just a really sleazy sex club.”

“Try and think positive,” Louis tells her as they stroll through the trying-too-hard-to-be-gothic halls of what may or may not be a sex club and take their seats in the theatre, as far back as possible in case they need to make a quick exit.

The show itself still does not clear up the matter of whether or not they are in a sex club. It’s some kind of gothic, macabre burlesque which Claudia is fascinated by. Whether it is the nudity that draws Claudia’s eye or the story of a woman being consumed and murdered gruesomely by vampires, Louis does not know and does not want to. (Seriously though, when the fuck did vampires become so common in his life? Ever since he got to this damn school they’ve been everywhere. It’s annoying.)

~~~~

The show ends. Claudia’s eyes were like saucers the whole time and are still frozen like that as the curtain closes. Louis is less impressed. Privately, he thinks to himself that the show is nothing more than the product of the pretension and hormones that exist on this high level almost solely on college campuses. Many of the audience files out but Louis and Claudia stay behind, Claudia grinning most unsettlingly.

Armand shows up right as Louis was considering calling Child Protective Services on himself and stops all thoughts Louis had dead in their tracks.

Armand was… hot; in this androgynous, barely (or not at all) legal kind of way that Louis was not aware he was into until the precise moment he realized he was really, _really_ into it.

“Come,” Armand says to both of them. “Cast after-party.”

Louis follows them backstage where several actors and assorted behind the scenes people and friends of the actors sit around, looking cheerful and relaxed. Armand perches on the arm of a chair, the seat of which is inhabited by a boy who looks even younger than Armand does. Armand’s arm lies in a casual show of possession on the boy’s shoulder. Louis decides it best not to comment on that whole situation.

Scanning the room to avoid looking too closely at the boy to determine his age, Louis notices the absence of one central figure. “Hey, where’s the actress who got killed onstage? I’d like to meet her.”

“Oh she’s super dead,” Armand says dismissively. “We actually murdered her up there. Don’t even worry about it.” Louis shrugs and does as Armand asks. An easy task as that asshole mime, Santiago, has just handed him a shot of absinthe.

“You are, at this very moment, not currently an asshole,” Louis tells him.

“Thanks,” says Santiago, sarcastically.

Eventually Louis can no longer ignore the fact that Armand’s eyes are following him as he looks at everything in the room except for Armand. Louis looks back at him and gets so thoroughly eye-fucked that for a moment, it feels as if the world has fallen away. Then the boy beside Armand shifts and the moment ends.

Armand too seems to have just remembered his companion and leans down to whisper something in his ear. At Armand’s unheard words, the boy rises, strips off his shirt and lies down on the table.

“Body shots,” offers Armand, one of the other actors having handed him the bottle of absinthe.

Louis wonders briefly about the morality of doing body shots off someone who is almost certainly not legal drinking age. But Armand is looking at him expectantly so Louis does a body shot off the boy below him and Armand nods his approval.

“Another?” Armand offers. Louis shakes his head. Body shots always lead to very weird evenings for him and besides, he has Claudia with him.

“Shame,” says Armand. "Alright, let’s walk back then. This party’s gonna get really weird really soon and I think someone is up past her bedtime,” he says teasingly to Claudia. The look in Claudia’s eyes suggest she’s already thought through how to murder him and is currently figuring out how to dispose of the body.

~~~~

“Are you the leader of your group?” Louis asks Armand on the way back.

Armand scoffs. “Art cannot have a leader. What we do is an honest expression of life and death, concepts beyond something so small as leaders and followers,” Armand explains. “But if there was a leader, yeah, it would totally be me.”

Louis deposits a glaring Claudia into bed when they return to Rue Royale and follows Armand back to his weird Hot Topic, S&M dungeon room where they shoot the shit about existence and the influence of God and Satan in humanity’s everyday actions.

Armand shows himself to be surprisingly knowledgable and passionate about the topic of religion. Louis wonders if he was an alter boy or something. It is wonderful to hear after Lestat’s cyniciscm and it reminds Louis of the days before his brother annoyed him. But then Armand ruins it.

“And yet…” Armand is saying, “in all my years alive, I have seen no proof of God. I think perhaps he must not exist.” Louis gets annoyed. The last thing he needs in his life is more existential bullshit.

“In all your years alive,” Louis repeats. “And how many years is that? How old are you?”

“Older than you think,” Armand replies, mysteriously.

 _Well that’s a fucking relief,_ Louis thinks. Armand looks about twelve. 

“And God is dead, dude, take a first year philosophy class.”

Louis leaves soon afterwards but not before Armand makes him promise to attend another one of their shows. He had not been expecting to sleep in his bed that night but there he finds himself, Armand’s angelic face still in his mind and Claudia kicking him in her sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tend to think of this fic in two portions. The first half of it is me mischaracterizing Lestat for the sake of humour and now we're in the second portion which is me mischaracterizing Armand for the sake of humour (plus that awkward bridge chapter which has neither of them and that's why it's my least favourite.) Welcome to the new age.


	9. Chapter 9

_So that’s the story of how I became friends with the drama kids. Claudia and I began attending their show as many nights as we were able and though structurally, the show remained the same, it was a new experience every time. Afterwards we would stay and unwind with the cast. Some of the women would fawn over Claudia. She enjoyed the attention and it left me free to engage with Armand. It seemed foolish that we had never interacted within our own frat and I regretted the months I spent without knowing him. He became a constant figure in my life and my thoughts and I found that I did not mind at all. Armand could talk art, philosophy and hardcore pornography with equal expertise and insight. I learned much from him. Our closeness did not escape the notice of Claudia however, and she and Armand did not care for one another._

Louis and Claudia had left the gathering of drama kids early that night. Something was in the air that was making them a most dislikable combination of pretentious and morose. Armand was talking about European genocides and religious atrocities and Louis had been quite relieved when Claudia had whispered in his ear that she wanted to leave. So, making their excuses, they made their way back to the Alpha Alpha Alpha house.

“I don’t like them,” Claudia says.

“They’re not always like that,” Louis defends. “But I don’t like them much either when they’re being all depressing and shit.”

“That should be a warning sign,” points out Claudia. “When a group of people discuss so much existential dread and sad stuff that it puts even _you_ off, they have a problem as a group of people.”

“Hey!” exclaims Louis defensively. “I’m fun! I can be upbeat!”

Claudia rolls her eyes. “Sure. Whatever. That’s not the only problem. I hear them talking about me. They think I can’t understand but I do. They say it’s not right that I’m here with you. They’re thinking of informing the school.” Louis’s eyebrows raise. Shit. That’s not good. “And then I’d get taken away,” Claudia continues. “And you wouldn’t let that happen would you, Louis? You wouldn’t let them take me away from you?”

Louis shakes his head.

“You wouldn’t leave me for Armand would you? Even if he asked?”

“It’s not a competition,” Louis tries fruitlessly to explain.

“Would you?” Claudia repeats, forcefully.

“No,” Louis concedes.

“He wants you. And I see what you're like around him, it's as if you're under some spell.”

“Oh my god,” Louis says, starting to get exasperated. “I’m not going to leave you.”

“He wants you for himself. He wants you to leave me because he wants you. He wants me out of the way so that you’ll be his but you’re mine aren’t you Louis?”

“Sure,” Louis agrees.

Louis tucks Claudia into bed that night thinking it’s the end of it but as he draws away, Claudia grabs his wrist. “You can’t go back to him, or to his friends. They put me in danger. Promise me Louis!” Claudia looks at him with horrifyingly unblinking eyes that pretty much compel Louis to agree so she’ll break her creepy eye-contact.

~~~~

Louis breaks his promise less than twelve hours later. They do still live in the same house as Armand after all and what’s Louis supposed to do? Reject an invitation of espresso in Armand’s room while Claudia is still asleep?

Armand and Louis sit on the leather sofa in his room. The boy from the other night is there too, asleep in Armand’s bed. Louis raises a questioning eyebrow at Armand who dismisses it. “Don’t worry about him, he sleeps like the dead. He won’t disturb us.” This was not the question Louis had in mind.

“What’s Santiago’s beef with me?” Louis asks, conversationally as Armand offers him a shot of espresso. “He really seems to have a problem with me and Claudia.”

“You have called him an asshole on more than a dozen occasions,” Armand offers.

Louis shakes his head at Armand’s explanation. “There’s more to it than that and you know it.”

Armand sighs. “Santiago doesn’t think you a “true artist” and worthy of our company. And then there is the matter of Claudia, the child who must accompany you everywhere who, in Santiago’s words, “cramps his style”. You should stay away from him and the others. I fear you and Claudia have rather worn out your welcome at our show.”

“But you’re the leader! Couldn't you just ask them to lay off?”

"Absolutely not," says Armand. “I would never use my power on my fellow artists. I would never infringe on their freedom in the one place where they may exercise it! And besides, what if they start to dislike me? We can’t have that now.”

Armand slides closer to Louis and puts a hand on his arm. Louis swallows the instinct to say “no homo” because something tells him that yes, this is all very homo, and he’s surprisingly ok with that. “Do you really think a five year old is all the company you need in this world?” Armand murmurs.

Louis swallows hard and tears himself away from Armand’s gaze. Did Armand take a goddamn master class in eye-fucking or something? Because damn, he was too good at it. “Just, do me a favour, as a fellow Alpha Alpha Alpha brother or whatever. Keep the drama nerds away from me and Claudia okay?” Louis says as he stands up, ready to leave.

“Wait!” Armand says, a little desperately. Louis pauses, his hand on the doorknob handle. “Can I offer you a Sunday morning blowjob?”

“What?”

Armand frowns. “I literally don’t know how I could have made that sentence any clearer.”

“What about him?” Louis asks, gesturing to the boy still asleep in Armand’s bed.

Armand looks at the boy as if his sleeping there was some sort of personal offence. Louis leaves.

“Don’t go!” Armand calls after him.

“I have to,” Louis whispers dramatically, as if he were leaving for war and not to get breakfast.

Claudia is sitting at the breakfast table waiting for him. Upon the sight of her, Louis avoids the kitchen entirely and goes for breakfast at Subway.

~~~~

_I can’t say I avoided Armand after this. We were brothers and I was drawn to him more than I’d been to anyone. To say Claudia didn’t approve of our newfound companionship was an understatement. She felt incredibly threatened by him and the power he had over me. Up until this point, she, and she alone was the only person who had any significant influence on me and she did not care for the newfound competition. She even went so far as to try and get me a girlfriend._

Louis gets a strong sense of deja vu when he walks into his house and sees Claudia sitting with a beautiful woman. The whole scene reminds him a little too much of the apology hookers incident.

The woman doesn’t take her eyes off him as Louis removes his shoes and walks over to Claudia, ready for an explanation. “He’s exactly as you said he would be,” the woman says to Claudia.

Louis runs a hand through his hair. “Claudia, please tell me purchasing hookers as gifts isn’t a genetic trait in your family.” The woman looks outraged.

“Oh. You’re not a hooker then?” Louis says, upon noticing her expression. “My sincerest apologies for the assumption. There have been…incidents.” The woman’s face changes from a look of offence to one of deep interest. Louis almost prefers the former. He really doesn’t want to go into it.

Claudia whispers something in the woman’s ear and gets off the couch. “Louis, if I might have a word?” Claudia gestures towards the kitchen and Louis follows her there, warily.

“Do it, Louis,” Claudia says.

“Do what?” asks Louis, completely perplexed.

“Make Madeline your girlfriend!” Claudia says imploringly. “Do sex with her.”

“What now?”

“Well I certainly can’t do it!” Claudia says defensively.

Louis makes a face. “Why does anyone have to do it?”

“Because I’m tired of living with a bunch of frat boys? Don’t you think I need some female influence at this stage in my life? I’m becoming a young woman, Louis!”

Louis tries to block that last comment from becoming embedded in his memory. “I’ll go talk to her,” he concedes grudgingly. “No promises.”

Claudia literally bounces up and down as Louis leaves. The woman, Madeline, is gazing around the house with awe on her face. Probably seeing the luxury and the parties and not seeing any of the mornings after filled with hangovers and getting Bloody Marys out of the carpet.

“How do we appear to you?” Louis asks her. “Does life in a frat seem glamorous to you? Do the six packs and hair gel of my brothers appeal to you? Trust me, you have no idea how gross it is living with this number of dudes. Do you think we actually like the smell of AXE body spray? Because we don’t. It’s just better than the scent it’s covering up.” Madeline makes a face. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, exposing yourself to this lifestyle.”

“Oh my god Louis stop talking!” Claudia screams from the kitchen “I hate you so much! Don’t you dare ruin this for me!”

“So….” says Louis awkwardly, changing tracks. “Wanna get coffee sometime?”

Miraculously, Madeline accepts. Upon hearing this, Claudia re-enters the room and places herself on Madeline’s lap, hugging her and gazing up at her with watery eyes. “Thank you,” she says, sounding a little too sincere. “Now leave us.”

Madeline leaves at Claudia’s words. “That was kind of rude,” Louis tells her as Claudia closes behind Madeline.

Claudia rolls her eyes. “She left didn’t she?” she points out as she climbs up to sit next to Louis on the couch. “Look, I need Madeline in my life. You could get rid of me any time you want to. One phone call, I couldn’t stop you, I’m five. I would be forced to leave. Would you leave with me Louis? When I have no one? You’ve got your new jailbait brother and you got my own brother expelled.” Louis opens his mouth to protest, wanting to remind Claudia that it was her idea to expel Lestat but Claudia is not interested in hearing it. “Keep me safe Louis. Keep me with you. Give Madeline to me.”

Louis jumps off the couch. “I can’t give you people!”

“Yes you can! And then Armand can have you!” implores Claudia, either completely missing the point of Louis’ protest or not understanding that owning people is considered slavery.

“I tell you now, I will not help you have Armand expelled. I know you hate him because he puts you in your place and doesn’t treat you like the angel we both know you’re not but I will not get rid of him like we did Lestat.”

“If I wanted Armand gone, I could do it without your help,” Claudia says, dismissively. “But I wouldn’t need to if I had Madeline.”

“Fine,” Louis says, petulantly.

Louis chases Madeline all the way to her dorm and gets inside the elevator with her at the last moment as she rides up to her floor. She looks surprised to see him, even more so when he kisses her as the elevator doors close. It’s all very romantic and pretty much instantly solidifies their new relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend. Mission accomplished.

“I kissed her,” Louis tells Claudia when he returns. “It was very romantic.” There’s a hickey on his neck. “But I’m not happy about this!”

Claudia, on the other hand looks positively delighted.

~~~~

Louis wants to go to a party on Saturday so he puts what Claudia said about Madeline being her new caregiver to the test.

“Will you babysit Claudia on Saturday?” he asks Madeline.

“Yes!” She says, enthusiastically. “I can do her hair just like a little doll and we can play dress up…”

“Is that what you think her?” Louis asks. “A doll?”

“Don’t worry. I am fully aware that she is actually a living human child.”

“Well… good then. Have fun.”

~~~~

Louis returns later that night to find Claudia and Madeline burning all of Claudia’s dolls in a bonfire they made in the backyard.

“What the hell!” He shouts.

“It’s symbolic, Louis,” Madeline explains. “Claudia is growing up so we are burning her childhood away so that she may become a woman.”

“What the hell!” Louis repeats, looking at the grotesque, half-melted face of a barbie.

“Louis is just mad because we didn’t invite him to come burn things,” Claudia tells Madeline, conspiratorially.

Louis admits to himself that yes, he is a little hurt he wasn’t invited.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very little happens in this chapter. It's basically just both Louis and Armand douching it up in their own separate, ridiculous ways. Enjoy.

_Armand had inhabited both my waking and dreaming life by that point. I spent much time with him and enjoyed his companionship in a way that I cannot honestly say I enjoyed my then-girlfriend Madeline's. Armand taught me many secrets of our University campus including how to get onto the roofs of many of the buildings. One night, on top of the freshman dorms he admitted that he needed me. Though the phrase called to mind Claudia, I found myself overjoyed to hear it as I felt that I, too needed him. Still however, Claudia was omnipresent in our relationship for I could not yet leave her, however much Armand clearly desired it._

“I want you,” Armand tells Louis one night as they stargaze on the roof of Rue Royale. Louis says nothing.

Armand looks at him. "Did you hear me? I want you. More than anything in the world.” Armand moves closer, curling up into Louis’ side, his fingers trailing over his leg, crossing dangerously close to his inseam. “I know that you want me too and you know you have a standing invitation to my room and yet you stay away. Claudia is slipping away from you and I am right here and still you do not come. I need you, Louis. Why do you resist?”

“I wasn’t aware I was into dudes,” Louis says, artlessly.

Armand smiles at him. “It is time to change. Is college not the time for that? Claudia was a change for you, and now it is time for another one. You must evolve, lest you become one of those rigid freshman who breaks down at the end of the year and never returns.” Armand speaks of this as though he has seen it many times, despite there being no way Louis can find that such would be possible given Armand’s age. (Which he still doesn’t know.)

Louis moves Armand’s hand away from his crotch but keeps a hold on it so Armand doesn’t think it’s an outright rejection. So they hold hands like sappy teenagers and stare at the stars and shoot the shit about art for a while until Armand brings up Marius. Louis knows a little about Marius. He’s another of their brothers, though Louis has not met him personally. All he knows about Marius is that he's an artist and currently in Italy. As it turns out, it was Marius who initiated Armand.

Louis listens to Armand discuss Marius’s artwork, a sense of deep longing permeating his words. “Did you love him?" Louis asks, teasingly.

“Yes,” Armand admits, a little dreamily.

“Oh.” Louis shifts uncomfortably, taking his hand out of Armand’s grip.

“Did you not love Lestat, who initiated you?” Armand asks, defensively.

“No!" Louis says, a little too loudly.

Armand raises his hands in surrender. “My bad dude. You just talk about him a lot and you guys bickered like an old married couple. I always thought you guys must have been having incredibly passionate makeup sex.”

Desperate to change the subject, Louis turns the tables on Armand. “If you love Marius, why aren’t you with him?”

“Love is a complex thing,” Armand says, mysteriously. “I do not need him at this point in my life, nor him me. Also we got very concerned looks when we were out together in public.”

Louis stares up at the stars again and feels incredibly insignificant and incredibly cliche for feeling incredibly insignificant. “Lestat initiated me into this brotherhood and mostly what I’ve found is that it’s just a cornucopia of douchebaggery,” Louis tries to explain to Armand. “And when I tried to learn the history behind our brotherhood or ask Lestat any questions, it just lead to even more doucheyness. Lestat was just such an asshole. So please, teach me about things that aren’t douchey, show me that this life choice wasn’t a mistake because I've felt that way pretty much since I woke up in Lestat's bed the morning after my initiation.”

“But don’t you see Louis?” says Armand. “We are all assholes. Not only our brothers, but this entire campus, this generation, all of humanity. Humanity is one giant asshole.”

“That was fucking deep, dude." Louis says, gazing wide-eyed at Armand. Armand is so fucking brilliant. And hot. Armand is really, really hot. But not hot enough to distract Louis from the existential crisis that Armand's words brought to the surface. "Man, sometimes though, I just feel like I’m at odds with everything though. Like I was born in the wrong generation or something, like I don’t belong here. I should’ve been born in like the 1760’s or some shit.”

Armand rolls his eyes. “Congratulations. That makes you like literally every college student who ever existed, my friend.” He grasps Louis’ chin with his hands. “You are unhappy. You are too hot to be this unhappy. Tell me why you still hold onto Claudia. Tell me why we still haven’t fucked even though you spend so much time with me. Tell me why you have a _girlfriend.”_ Armand says the last word mockingly, as though he is fully aware of the farce the relationship is, which he probably is. Armand knows many things he has no reason to.

Louis has answers to none of these questions.

“You know I’m the reason Madeline’s your girlfriend right?” Armand asks, conversationally.

Louis sighs. “Yeah I know. I was afraid of the gay thoughts I had about you and of what Claudia would think so I started dating a girl because it would help me bury my feelings towards you that I wasn’t ready to face.”

Armand laughs. “No, not in quite such a soul-searching way. I mean I suggested Madeline to Claudia as a new carer and companion for her. I didn’t expect her to suggest Madeline as your girlfriend or for you to follow through with it. I did not predict my plan would end in…” Armand gives a small shudder. _“Heterosexuality.”_

Louis sighs dramatically. “The fault still lies with me. I let a child push me into doing something I did not want and conform into being something I am not.”

“Oh my god will you just hate me?” Armand shouts, exasperated. “This self-loathing thing you’ve got going on is only sexy up to a point. And sometimes you're like, way past that point."

“I'm dead inside!” Louis snaps and climbs down from the roof.

“So I guess you’re not coming to my room tonight then?” Armand calls after him.

~~~~ 

Louis’ existential rage keeps him from Armand for all of 36 hours until Armand corners him at a coffee shop and Louis makes no move to escape.

“I think it’s time for Claudia to leave campus. Madeline can go too if you can swing it.”

Louis looks at him questioningly. “Why now?”

“My theatre troupe have become fed up with their presence, they want Claudia gone. Her presence at our shows have called down some attention from the authorities within the school that we would rather avoid.”

“Jesus Christ, what a clusterfuck.”

“Also I think you should come to dinner with me,” Armand continues.

Louis frowns at the conversational whiplash that Armand just pulled. “You’re taking this opportunity to ask me on a date?”

“Well I keep offering mindblowing sex at socially appropriate times and that tactic wasn’t working,” Armand says, defensively.

Louis takes a sip of whipped cream pretending to be coffee. “What about that boy who’s with you?” Louis reminds Armand. “Denis or something?”

“He won’t be back. His parents found out,” Armand says dismissively. “Come. I can get us seats at the one decent restaurant on campus if we leave now.”

“You tell me to kick Claudia and my girlfriend off campus and then expect I’ll go on a date with you the same day?" Louis asks, incredulous at Armand’s overconfidence.

“Well… yeah.”

“Dude… no.”

Armand smiles at him, which is not what Louis had expected. “Fine,” he says, sounding perfectly cheerful. And then Armand is crowding into Louis’ personal space. He’s shorter than Louis. even standing on his toes and that means Louis must have bent down— even though he had no good reason to— because suddenly Armand’s mouth is on his and somehow Louis’ hand has found its way to Armand’s ass but Louis is definitely not complicit in this, not at all. Nope. Armand is kissing him and he's totally not kissing Armand. This is a one-way street. The fact that his tongue is now in Armand's mouth is totally Armand’s fault.

And then Armand stops. And without another word, walks out of the coffee shop.

Louis just stands there dazed for minutes afterwards processing what Armand said and what he tasted like. (Better than this fucking caffeinated milkshake he ordered, that’s for sure.)


	11. Chapter 11

_Armand backed off after that. I knew what he was doing— tempting me, showing me what I could have but no longer offering it so freely. But knowing his plan didn’t make it any less effective. I did miss him. And perhaps, because of this, I began suggesting to Madeline and Claudia that they should leave. To my surprise, they were agreeable. Eventually. Claudia and Madeline began planning to leave at the end of term to find Claudia’s mother. Claudia still disapproved of Armand but stopped making grand threats about him. She did beg for me to come with her and Madeline but I knew it was time for my care of her to end. Some days though, I did grow morose at the thought that I would not get to watch her grow up or use her to get discounts at the museum. But I had chosen my brothers; or, as Claudia somewhat righty said, I had chosen Armand. Even with this inner turmoil, as summer began to approach, I felt hopeful._

Louis, Claudia and Madeline were sharing a meal together. It was supposed to be a celebration of Louis finishing his exams but though none of them were saying it, the bigger event they were marking was that it would likely be the final meal they would share together. Claudia and Madeline were leaving the next day.

Suddenly, making all too dramatic an entrance, Armand’s theatre friends burst into their kitchen.

“This has gone on long enough,” Santiago says as he enters the room, cape fluttering dramatically behind him.

Louis glares at them. “What has?” he asks.

“Her.” Santiago points at Claudia. “We have informed campus officials of her being here. There is a meeting about Claudia’s… Future happening now. it would be best of you cooperate. It wouldn’t look good for Claudia or yourself if you were to act out.”

“Says the drama student who’s currently wearing a cape,” Claudia mutters.

~~~~

Louis, Claudia and Madeline follow the flamboyant army of drama student betrayers to the Administration building at which point some of their guard breaks off and whisks Madeline away. Before Louis could ask where she was being taken, he is ushered into a room by Santiago while Claudia is escorted down the hallway by the rest of the drama geeks.

“Where’s the campus officials?” asks Louis.

Santiago smirks at him. “You’re looking at the student representative for student and housing conflicts.”

“Fuck.”

Right as Louis is processing exactly how screwed he is, something even more unexpected happens. To Louis’ disbelief, Lestat enters the room. His sudden presence has the same impact as a blow to the head.

Louis tries hard to catch Lestat’s eye, despite Lestat attempting the exact opposite. He's doing his best not to look in Louis’ direction as though Louis is Medusa or something. When Louis finally manages eye-contact, he finds his own look of disbelief at Lestat’s very presence curiously mirrored by Lestat.

Turning pointedly away from him after only the briefest glance, Lestat rounds on Santiago. “Take Louis away, I do not want to see him.”

“Lestat!” Louis begs. “Tell them Claudia’s your sister, tell them about your mother, tell them I had no choice!”

Lestat squares his shoulders, still aggressively not looking Louis’ way, still addressing Santiago. “You told me he wouldn’t be punished for this. You promised me we’d be back in Alpha Alpha Alpha again and everything could be like it’s supposed to be.”

“Are you crazy?” asks Louis.

Lestat finally turns to face Louis. He stalks towards him, planting himself squarely in front of Louis. “I’ll give you your life back,” Lestat promises. Lestat is standing very close, his breath warm on Louis’ face and his hand unwelcome on Louis’ thigh.

“My life back? That’s a bit dramatic, even for you Lestat.”

“Your social life?” Lestat tries.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Still no.”

Lestat turns away from him in a huff. “Where’s Claudia?” he asks Santiago. “She’s the little demon who got me expelled in the first place.”

“Are you asking me to believe that a five year old created a master plan to get you expelled without help?” Santiago asks, clearly confident he’s found the great flaw in Lestat’s story.

“Trust me,” Lestat says. “Louis was a lot less crucial in the planning and execution of this plan than you are imagining. I know my sister and that disaster had her written all over it. Louis is pretty and all, but he’s not the brains of this operation, believe me.”

Ignoring the last, rather offensive comment, Louis pleads with Lestat again. “Lestat, please. Are you really going to send your own sister away to god knows where? Help me protect her. Stop this!” When Lestat remains unmoved, Louis realizes what he has to do. Taking a deep breath, Louis continues. “If you keep her safe, keep her with me— us, I’ll come back to you. Whatever that means. I’ll put out and everything.”

“I am so goddamn tired of my sister!” Lestat yells. “It’s time for her to go. But it’s okay, Louis. I’m keeping you safe.”

“About that…” says Santiago.

“You promised me!” Lestat snarls.

“I lied,” Santiago sing-songs.

“Where’s Armand?” Louis asks nobody in particular, hoping Armand will just appear at the sound of his name. “He wouldn’t be cool with this. I know he wouldn’t be. Lestat, you have to find Armand. Santiago just made you his bitch and Armand’s the only one who can undo the damage you’ve done.” But Lestat already left, bitch-slapping Santiago on his way out and then sprinting away before Santiago can retaliate.

~~~~

_After Lestat left, I was taken into a dark, very small room where I awaited my fate. The room felt like a coffin. There was not a working light switch so I sat in the darkness waiting for someone to come for me. I still hoped it might be Armand, telling me this was all part of some experimental short film or some other pretentious garbage but as I waited, I became more and more certain it would be a housing official or even the Dean telling me I was expelled._

The only thing that distracts Louis from his anxiety about what will happen to him is the fact that after waiting several hours, he really needs to pee.

Finally, finally, he hears the door open. “Louis!”

Louis has never been happier to hear Armand’s voice. “Oh thank god.”

“We’re getting out of here, come on. Hurry!”

“Why did it take you so long?” asks Louis, worrying he’s now fleeing from the cops or that something horrible had delayed Armand.

“You’ve kept me waiting this whole time so I figured I’d see how you like it for a change.”

“That’s seriously fucked up,” says Louis, jogging towards the exit. “Where are we going?”

“We’re getting out of here until this all blows over and I can trust you not to do something stupid that would get you expelled.”

“But I have to save her!” Louis exclaims. “I have to protect Claudia!”

Armand turns to face Louis. “You can’t help her. Not anymore.” His tone is so dramatic that Louis has to convince himself that nobody actually killed Claudia.

“But why can’t you get Santiago to stop this?” Louis begs, as they descend into a parking garage.

“It’s not just Santiago. It’s the whole troupe. They all want her gone and they’ll make it happen. If I go against them, all of them will revolt and overthrow me from my position of not-leadership. And then where would we be?”

Armand’s last words are lost on Louis as he has already begun to run towards the stairs. By the time Armand catches up with him, he’s outside the Dean’s office. He can see the silhouettes of Claudia and Madeline through the door. Celeste, one of the drama students stands to the side of it, smirking broadly. Beside her, with his face in his hands and an utterly defeated posture sits Lestat.

“Lestat!” Celeste says, excitedly. “Your boy toy is here look sharp!”

Lestat looks up at Louis blankly. “Actually, he’s older than me,” Lestat corrects.

Lestat is finally looking at Louis. Lestat is finally talking to Louis but Louis doesn't want to hear what Lestat is telling him. “It’s too late for them," Lestat is saying. "Claudia is not to be allowed to live on campus anymore and Madeline is leaving in protest. Probably good as they would’ve expelled her anyway. The way it’s all coming out, Madeline harboured a minor of no relation to her for months in her dorm room.”

“But that’s not true!” Louis yells.

“It is if you want to stay here,” says Armand gently from beside him. “Happy now?” he asks Lestat, the warmth in his voice from when he was addressing Louis turning glacial as he rounds on Lestat.

“Sure,” Lestat says, sarcastically. “Other than the fact that you betrayed me and bewitched Louis with your weird jailbait charm.” Armand’s eyebrows raise and a smirk plays across his face.

“Louis,” Lestat begs. “Don’t go with him. Come with me. Leave with me for the summer. Don’t let Armand seduce you with his angel face and bewitching eyes and great ass and sexual creativity—”

“Gee Lestat,” Armand interrupts. “The way you describe me I can’t imagine why Louis would like choose me over you. Nobody wants you here Lestat, just go.”

Lestat throws some juvenile retort back which leads to to he and Armand bickering like children; except with a weird amount of sexual tension. Louis hears none of it. He can see Madeline and Claudia through a window as they are being escorted out of the building and into a taxi. There is an air of finality to it and Louis knows he has lost them. The door to the taxi closes and Louis squints to see them through the blinding sun but as they drive off into the horizon, he loses sight of them. They are gone.

Louis begins to weep. A voice near his ear who he recognizes as Santiago is telling him to pull himself together; that he is making a scene. Louis punches him in the jaw. It makes him feel slightly better. And then Armand is holding onto him, leading him away and Louis doesn’t deck him because it would feel to much like punching a child so he just lets Armand steer him away from the scene, away from Santiago who is clutching his jaw and swearing, away from the window where he saw Madeline and Claudia for probably the last time, away from Lestat who is still yelling after them that Armand is a succubus.

“I’m sorry,” says Armand.

“You could’ve stopped it.”

“Claudia did not belong here. This was no environment for a child to grow up in,” Armand tells him gently.

Louis shakes his head. “I should’ve never joined that fucking frat.”

~~~~

The crappy theatre where Armand and his friends staged their drama shows burns down that night. It’s not too suspicious. The building was nowhere near up to fire code and with the collection of alcohol and other accelerants and the half-assed stage wiring that Armand admitted was done by a foreign guy he found on Craigslist for cheap, the fire goes uninvestigated.


	12. Chapter 12

Armand finds Louis sitting on a bench in a graveyard a few days after Claudia and Madeline had gone. “I’m pretty sure if you don’t actually have someone buried here, you need more clothing from Hot Topic and for this to be 2006 to engage in this sort of behaviour,” Armand says, as he sits next to him. “I’m also pretty sure you burnt down my theatre.”

Louis shrugs in response.

Armand actually laughs out loud. “You are unbelievable. What if there had been people in there?”

“Were there people in there?” Louis asks, very unconcerned.

“No, but…”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

“You fucking burned down a building!”

“That’s not what the official report says.”

Armand does not respond but grabs Louis by the arm and pulls him away from the graveyard and into a car where they drive away in silence.

“Do you hate me?” Louis asks, after they park the car back at Rue Royale. Night has fallen and Armand has suggested they walk around campus, see it one last time (sober) before the holidays. “Are you going to exact some kind of punishment or vengeance on me for what I did… Allegedly,” Louis adds.

Armand sighs. “If it were anyone else, I’d think that was a come on. But you’re too repressed for that kind of thing. No Louis, I don’t hate you. Mostly I just think you’re a little hilarious.” Louis looks offended which Armand laughs at.

“The rest of the troupe has kicked me out. Apparently me and my “acquaintances” caused too much drama.” Armand rolls his eyes. “The theatre was mine anyway and I was pretty much done with those dorks. They were holding me back. So I’m not all too mad you burned it down. Concerned about your solution to problems and emotional reactions, yes, but not enough that I don’t still want to sleep with you.”

They walk without speaking for a while. Louis breaks the silence as they pass the art building. “You know, I’ve never seen the student art gallery,” he says, staring up at the building.

“Do you wanna fuck in it?” Armand offers, holding up a campus master key he definitely shouldn't have.

Louis nods.

Armand picks the ugliest student sculpture he can find to fuck Louis in front of. Louis looks at it and thinks Armand’s probably trying to make some sort of point; or possibly an artistic statement. Louis would be more annoyed by Armand's obviously deliberate choice of location except Armand’s hand is currently on his cock which makes him feel too good and like Armand too much to really be concerned by it.

~~~~

_Armand and I spent the summer together. He took me to Egypt. At first it was fascinating. Armand and I… got to know each other better that summer and I found the country beautiful. But Claudia’s departure hung over my head and our relationship. I thought about her and all the mistakes I made this year constantly and it took a toll on my relationship with Armand. Apparently it’s bad boyfriend etiquette to ignore them for days at a time. Armand spoke so often of passion and he told me, at the end of our time together, that the only passion he could find in me was a passion for having none at all. We were finished by the time term started in the fall again._

_I do not know what became of Lestat; if in the discovery of Claudia, the university officials had learned that he was wrongfully expelled. I thought I saw him once when I returned to New Orleans but it turned out just to be a tall, blond homeless man who had taken up residence in the burnt shell of our first frat house. He did seem very eager to see me and I believed it to be Lestat for almost a half hour of ranting, begging and crying before I realized my mistake._

_I no longer hated Lestat. In some ways, I missed him very much though that may be an emotion that would vanish should I ever see him again. Armand told me that I was more fun when he was around which was probably true. He also told me I had no soul which I agreed with at the time but in hindsight was a little dramatic._

_So now I begin my second year, which I may only pray is less dramatic than my first year. I still live at the Alpha Alpha Alpha house for after all that happened last year, I do understand the meaning of brotherhood. And yet still, after all the passion and all the loss, I enter my second year feeling very little._

As Lestat is reading the final page, Louis remembers the end of the interview in question. He remembers the sense of failure that went along with the reporter boy, Daniel, clearly misunderstanding the moral of Louis’ sad tale.

~~~~

“You,” says Daniel. “Have got to be the most boring frat boy ever. I’m pretty sure you did it wrong.”

“Did what wrong?” asks Louis, confused.

“The lifestyle!” Daniel cries in exasperation. “Initiate me! I’d show you how it’s done.”

Louis gives a bizarrely fatherly pat to Daniel’s shoulder. “I think and I hope that you are not nearly enough of a douchebag to be a member of Alpha Alpha Alpha and I would not turn you into one.”

Before Louis leaves, Daniel asks if he knows where he can find Armand. “For background research,” Daniel explains. Louis tells Daniel where Armand usually eats breakfast, thinking nothing of it.

~~~~

Lestat stops reading and the memory of the day of the interview fades. “In case you were still wondering what became of me,” Lestat says, smirking broadly and still straddling Louis, “I’m back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. One ridiculous 2:00 in the morning conversation/string of jokes turned into nearly 20k of fic. Is there going to be a sequel? Maybe, hopefully, probably. But don't hold your breath on that. Interview took me about a year from first sentence written to first sentence actually posted and I actually knew where I was going with this one. But I do desperately want to adapt The Vampire Lestat so hopefully I will actually do so.  
> A huge thanks again for my proofreaders/betas burnadette_dpdl and cloudsinvenice for all the support.  
> 


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